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Barton: Ex-official should stop shoveling

The city’s former emergency management director, who was fired from his $95,123-a-year job in late August for lying on his resume, apparently doesn’t know the first lesson of Earth Moving 101:

When you’re in a hole, digging won’t get you out.

Last Tuesday, Johnson appeared on WTOC-TV to defend the indefensible — his own actions and the actions of his superiors who put him on the city’s payroll. They include City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney and Savannah Fire Chief Charles Middleton.

Johnson, who moved to Savannah from Virginia, told the TV station that City Hall unfairly gave him the boot. He said his bosses knew all along that he didn’t have the puffed-up credentials he listed on his resume, which apparently was prepared in April this year, three months before he was hired. He said fudging was no big deal.

“There are mistakes that happened and one of the things that I definitely own up to is I made a hustle mistake,” he said.

That’s an interesting term. A hustle mistake. What could it mean?

One interpretation is that he was so aggressive in trying to earn certification as a Georgia certified emergency manager that he claimed on his resume that he received it in June this year, when he didn’t.

It could mean he was so energetic in working on a master’s degree (in homeland security and emergency mamangement) that when he filled out a city job application in 2010, he claimed to have earned one from Virginia Commonwealth University, when he didn’t.

But hustle can also mean taking advantage of suckers who don’t know any better. (As in pool hustling, golf hustling, etc.)

Johnson may have spoken the truth about one thing. Or not.

Small-Toney said a few weeks ago said that Middleton and city Human Resources Director Beth Robinson had vetted his incorrect resume. And he still got the job. So if you believe the city manager, Johnson wasn’t lying when he said some top city officials knew about the resume fib — which suggests top officials don’t have a big problem with fibbers who apply for city jobs.

If that’s true, that’s not Johnson’s problem. That’s the city’s.

That may be why the mayor and council coughed up the equivalent of a giant fur ball when they first learned about this mess from this newspaper. Mayor Edna Jackson said she was convinced Johnson lied. She also said the fire chief was “very concerned” about what happened.

But even the mayor’s statement was confusing. Didn’t the city manager say that Middleton checked out Johnson’s resume, and the fire chief apparently didn’t see a problem?

Or maybe the real problem is Middleton’s eyesight. He works for the city manager. His vision ia limited to what his boss lets him see.

Hooking everyone up to a polygraph machine might help, but what’s the point? Johnson’s career with the city is history.

Expensive history.

Here’s what deserves a look-see — the body of work that Johnson produced, at public expense, regarding the proposal to truck liquefied natural gas through the city from the LNG terminal on Elba Island.

Johnson was hired in 2010 as a private contractor to advise City Hall on the LNG issue. He was paid a whopping $248,000 for 18 months worth of work. That’s $13,333 per month.

In part of the WTOC interview, Johnson appeared to take credit for the decision that private industry made to mothball the trucking plan. That’s a stretch worthy of Pinocchio.

The reason this proposal went nowhere was the changing world marketplace for natural gas. American energy companies discovered they can make more money exporting domestic-produced LNG, as opposed to importing the foreign stuff to Savannah and trucking it around the Southeast and selling it. It wasn’t anything Johnson or the city did.

In the end, Johnson got paid a cool quarter mil. You don’t need a special certificate or master’s degree to recognize a sweet pay day. He should stop shoveling. He should take the money and run.